A butcher is a person who slaughters animals, dresses their flesh and sells their meat.
Butcher, The Butcher, Butchers, or Butcher's may also refer to:
People
[edit]- Butcher (surname), a common surname
Epithet
[edit]In real life
[edit]- Butcher of Amritsar: Reginald Dyer (1864–1927), British Indian Army officer responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar
- Butcher of Baghdad: Saddam Hussein (1937–2006), President of Iraq until deposed in 2003
- Butcher of the Balkans (disambiguation), several people
- Butcher of Balochistan and Butcher of Bengal: Tikka Khan (1915–2002), Pakistan Army four-star general and first Chief of Staff
- Butcher of Bega: Graeme Stephen Reeves (born 1949), Australian deregistered gynecologist and obstetrician
- Butcher of Beijing: Li Peng (李鹏; 1928–2019) top level Chinese Communist Party official known for supporting the use of violence against the Tiananmen Square Protests
- Butcher of Beirut: Ariel Sharon (1928–2014), Israeli Prime Minister and general
- Butcher of Beslan: Shamil Basayev (1965–2006), Chechen militant Islamist and rebel leader
- Butcher of Bosnia:
- Ratko Mladić (born 1943), Bosnian Serb former general and Chief of Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska
- Radovan Karadžić (born 1945), Bosnian Serb former politician and President of Republika Srpska
- Butcher of Bucha: Azatbek Omurbekov (born 1983), Russian military officer
- Butcher of La Cabaña: Che Guevara (1928–1967), Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist
- Butcher of Cesena: Antipope Clement VII (1342-1394)
- Butcher of Congo: King Leopold II of Belgium
- Butcher of Drogheda: Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), Commonwealth military and political leader
- Butcher of Eastern Visayas: Jovito Palparan (born 1950), Filipino fugitive, politician and former army general
- Butcher of Genoa: Friedrich Engel (1909–2006)
- Butcher of Hanover: Fritz Haarmann (1879–1925), German serial killer
- Butcher of Kentucky: Stephen G. Burbridge (1831–1894), Union major general during the American Civil War
- Butcher of Kurdistan: Ali Hassan al-Majid (1941–2010), Iraqi Defense Minister, Interior Minister, military commander and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, better known as "Chemical Ali"
- Butcher of Lyon: Klaus Barbie (1913–1991), World War II SS-Hauptsturmführer and Gestapo member
- Butcher of Mirpur: Abdul Quader Molla (1948–2013), Bangladeshi Islamist leader and politician
- Butcher of Plainfield: Ed Gein (1906–1984), American murderer
- Butcher of Prague: Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942), German World War II Nazi official and one of the main architects of the Holocaust
- Butcher of Rangoon: Sein Lwin (1923–2004), Burmese brigadier general and briefly President of Myanmar (Burma)
- Butcher of Riga: Eduard Roschmann (1908–1977), Austrian SS officer and commandant of the Riga ghetto during 1943
- Butcher of Rostov: Andrei Chikatilo (1936–1994), Soviet serial killer
- Butcher of Samar: Littleton Waller (1856–1926), US Marine Corps officer
- Butcher of the Somme: Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (1861–1928), British First World War field marshal
- Butcher of the Syria: Aleksandr Dvornikov (born 1961), Russian army general
- Butcher of Uganda: Idi Amin (c. 1925–2003), President of Uganda and major general
- Butcher of Warsaw:
- Josef Albert Meisinger (1899–1947), German SS officer
- Heinz Reinefarth (1903–1979), German SS officer
In fiction
[edit]- Butcher of Arlav: Biff Simpson (Hunters)
- Butcher of Bakersfield: Benjamin "Ben" Richards (The Running Man)
- Butcher of Blaviken: Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher)
- Butcher of Bogon: Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank)
- Butcher of Skull Moon: The Doctor (Doctor Who)
- Butcher of Stilwater: The Protagonist/The Boss/"Playa" (Saints Row)
- Butcher of Torfan: Commander Shepard (Mass Effect)
- Butcher of White Orchard: Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher)
Nickname
[edit]- Imre Arakas, Estonian criminal known as "The Butcher"
- Prince William, Duke of Cumberland (1721–1765), son of King George II of Great Britain and general known to his political enemies as "Butcher" Cumberland
- John Ronald Brown (1922–2010), American surgeon convicted of second-degree murder after operating without a license
- Edward Cummiskey (died 1976), New York City mobster known as "The Butcher"
- Robert Hansen (died 2014), an American serial killer, nicknamed the Butcher Baker
- Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet (1892–1984), Marshal of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War
- Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, "adulescentulus carnifex" (Latin for "The Teenage Butcher"), also known in English as "Pompey the Great"
- Andrew Mrotek (born 1983), "the Butcher", American drummer for the band The Academy Is...
- William Poole (1821–1855), leader of the New York City gang the Bowery Boys, bare-knuckle boxer, and a leader of the Know Nothing political movement, known as "Bill the Butcher"
- Valeriano Weyler, 1st Duke of Rubí (1838–1930), Spanish general and Governor General of the Philippines and Cuba
- Andoni Goikoetxea (born 1956), Spanish footballer, "The Butcher of Bilbao"
- Lisandro Martínez (born 1998), Argentine footballer, "The Butcher" or "Butcher of Amsterdam" when playing for Ajax Amsterdam
Aliases
[edit]- The Butcher (Brutus Beefcake, born 1957), ring name of professional wrestler Edward Leslie
- Abdullah the Butcher (born 1941), ring name of professional wrestler Larry Shreve
- "Butcher", a ring name of former professional wrestler Paul Vachon (born 1938)
- The Butcher, ring name of professional wrestler Andy Williams (born 1977)
- The Butcher Brothers, alter-egos of American film directors Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores
Arts and entertainment
[edit]Fictional characters
[edit]- Billy "The Butcher" Butcher, from the comic series The Boys, its spin-off Butcher, and TV series adaptations
- The Butcher (American Horror Story), from the TV series American Horror Story: Roanoke
- The Butcher, a demon in the Diablo video game series and Heroes of the Storm
- The Butcher, a monster in the video game Silent Hill: Origins
- The Butcher, a physical embodiment of "rage" of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum, the emotion that powers the Red Lantern Corps in the DC Comics universe
- On the British soap opera Eastenders:
Film and television
[edit]- Le Boucher (The Butcher), a 1970 French drama/thriller
- The Butcher (2006 film), an American horror film
- The Butcher (2007 film), a South Korean horror film
- The Butcher (2009 film), an American action film
- The Butchers (film), a 2014 American horror film
- Butcher's Film Service, a British film production and distribution company
- The Butcher (TV series), a 2019 butchering reality competition show
- Butchers (2020 film), a 2020 American horror film
Music
[edit]- "The Butcher" (song), a 2011 song by Radiohead
- Butcher Bros., American record producers
Places
[edit]- Butcher Hills, Montana
- Butcher (or Butcher's) Inlet, on which Cossack, Western Australia is situated
- Butcher Island, off the coast of Mumbai, India
- Butcher Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica
- Butcher Ridge, Oates Land, Antarctica
- Butchers Knob, part of Cooper Mountain
- Butchers Lake, Victoria, Australia
- Butchers Spur, Ross Dependency, Antarctica
- Butcher Hollow, Kentucky
Other uses
[edit]- Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker, spin-off comic miniseries of The Boys, following Billy Butcher
- Butcher, a small beer glass in South Australia
- 4th Armored Division (United States), nicknamed "Roosevelt's Butchers"
- Butcher baronets, two titles in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom, both extinct
- Shankill Butchers, an Ulster loyalist gang active between 1975 and 1982 in Belfast, Northern Ireland